Natural Cures For Acid Reflux

Acid reflux is a big problem in the United States and around the
world. It is also known as "Reflux Esophagitis" and is considered
to be a inflammation of the esophagus caused by the regurgitation of
gastric juices(stomach acid) from the stomach into the lower
esophagus. One of the most common symptoms of acid reflux is
"heartburn." As much as ten percent of the entire adult
population of the United States suffers from heartburn on a daily
basis. Naturally, a lot of people want natural cures for acid
reflux.

More severe cases of acid reflux are called GERD which stands for
Gastroesophageal Refluc Disease. This is similar to acid reflux,
which just about all people experience at one point or another, but
it becomes chronic and recurrent. If it goes untreated it can cause
serious health problems.

The treatments most people use for acid reflux and GERD are drugs
which are supposed to suppress the acid. All of the drugs you see on
TV are marketed some kind of magic miracle cure that will completely
cure heartburn. As you might have guessed this is a huge business and
these medicines are huge money makers for drug companies. For
example, Prilosec become the best selling prescription drug
for senior citizens all across the world. This made its manufacturer
six billion dollars a year. AstraZeneca also created Nexium
and spent millions of dollars marketing it just because their
original patent on Prilosec ran out.

While this may not seem like a problem on the surface it is
important the point out that many experts have run studies which
concluded that Nexium isn't any more effective than Prilosec at all.
The entire thing was a marketing move only to keep their patients on
a drug which they had complete control over and no other competing
company could produce. These drugs begin to look like less of a
necessity to keep you in good health and more of a way to increase a
multinational corporations profits.

The truth is that drugs are rarely, if ever, the best solution to
taking care of common stomach problems such as ulcers and acid
reflux. You can argue that Prilosec and Nexium are very good at what
they do and there is no reason to switch over a natural cure for
acid reflux. However, most studies have shown that these drugs
don't solve problems of acid reflux at all and in fact might even
make it worse.

There are a lot of drugs on the market which work the same way as
Prilosec. They are called "proton pump inhibitors". There
are also drugs such as Zantac, pepcid, and tagament which are called
H2 blocker agents. Some experts have argued that these are terrible
drugs to put into your bodies.

This is for a very good reason. These types of drugs are used to
reduce the amount of hydrochloric acids in your stomach. This will
have a few different effects. First of all it will begin to diminish
your ability to properly digest your food. This also hurts your
ability to fight food born illnesses. This is because hydrochloric
acid is one of your bodies defense mechanisms against these
illnesses. That means that your chances of food poisoning increase
significantly when you are on these types of drugs. Of course, there
are other problems as well. When you don't digest your food in the
correct way as the result of having less acid in your stomach your
will increase your risk of several other types of degenerative
diseases. There have been atleast two major studies by Howard Hughes
Medical Institute and the second at the University Of Michigan
Medical School which showed that performed tests on mice using these
drugs. They showed pretty conclusively that reducing the amount of
hydrochloric acid is the absolute wrong approach to curing acid
reflux.

Many people have forgotten about it already but only a few years
ago there was a drugh called Propulsid on the market. This was
a commonly prescribed drug for acid reflux and a lot of people were
using it. It was later pulled because it was actually causing many of
its users to die.

Natural Cures For Acid Reflux

As you can see using prescription drugs are probably not the best
answer to curing your acid reflux problems. There are a lot of
natural cures for acid reflux which you can consider. In the end
these will not only help you take care of your acid reflux but also
make you a much healthier person.

But where should you start? One of the first things you can do is
get on a detoxification diet, begin drinking a lot of water
everyday-preferably about one gallon of high quality filtered water-
and begin taking some form of quality probiotics. This will go
a long ways towards helping your body get back its natural balance in
the stomach. Drinking water is highly beneficial to the body. You
should drink enough water that your urine is always a light shade of
yellow. Yes, you will have to go to the bathroom much more often when
you drink this much water. The reason water is so effective is that
it can dilute the acids in your stomach and help them return to a
much more normal PH level.

There are a few other things you can do as well. Many people find
a lot of relief from herbs such as Artemisia asiatica which is
from wormwood and others eat garlic. It should become
one of the foods that you eat every single day. Garlic does a great
job of helping your bowel flora as well as killing dangerous food
born pathogens you might be having trouble with if you have acid
reflux. You need to make sure that you take the garlic a certain way
however. You need to make sure that it is fresh, not dried, and it
needs to be crushed up. You can chew on it, which I'm not sure I
would recommend, or you can crush it up with a spoon or other utensil
before eating it.